NYC

I studied Walt Whitman's poetry at university, but having never seen New York at the time, I didn't feel an immediate connection with his words, and they certainly didn't echo through my mind at times they way they do now. My elderly grandmother only ever took one overseas holiday in her life, a round-the-world trip back to Italy and through Europe, the UK and the US. She came to New York in the early 70s, only briefly, but has never forgotten those days here, although she forgets much else, including - sometimes - the fact that I now live here. Now I understand why she often talks about that one holiday of forty years ago.